Customer Reviews

How Night Came To Be - Pbk

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I just purchased this book for my daughter to expose her to my native country( Brazil) .This book has a nice romantic "Brazillian " folk story but actually I do not think it is well known to Brazillians as i never heard about it. Also for my surprise another book: Sea Serpent'S Daughter by Lippert consist of the exactly same story, just a bit summarized even same illustrations.

I am a big proponent of elementary school children reading the myths and legends of other cultures and within that context I strongly recommend this book. The story is a legend from Brazil; it is an "explanation" of how the day/night cycle came to be.
According to the story, at first there was nothing but daylight, the only place darkness could be found was in the depths of the ocean. However, when a creature of the deep rises up and becomes a beautiful girl, her eyes begin to hurt from the constant light. An expedition makes contact with her father and he packs some dark in a container and warns the men not to open it. Of course they do and the dark that emerges is so powerful that it takes up half the time. The bag also contained a shell that when taken out went up into the sky and became the moon.
Written at the level of the second or third grade reader, this book would be an excellent addition to any course on multicultural studies.